In a country of 1.3 billion people, 7-foot, 250-pound Satnam Singh Bhamar has become a beacon for basketball hope.

At age 14.

…

That potential starts with his size, which is incredible itself. At age 14, he is expected to grow for another couple of years. For now, he wears a size-22 basketball shoe. His hands swallow the ball. His father, Balbir Singh Bhamara, is 7-2. His grandmother on his father’s side is 6-9.

Punjab is one of India’s more prosperous states. Interestingly this kid’s paternal grandmother is as tall in standard deviation units as her son or grandson. In Western developed societies height is 80-90% heritable. That means that there’s very little expected regression back to the population mean for any given child. The article doesn’t mention the mother’s height though. If she is of more normal size then Satnam is either a fluke, or, there are dominant large effect rare alleles being passed down by the father, perhaps from the paternal grandmother.

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About Razib Khan

I have degrees in biology and biochemistry, a passion for genetics, history, and philosophy, and shrimp is my favorite food. In relation to nationality I'm a American Northwesterner, in politics I'm a reactionary, and as for religion I have none (I'm an atheist). If you want to know more, see the links at http://www.razib.com